Who are you?

Pentecost 14A 2023

Today’s reading from the Hebrew scripture can only be described as enigmatic. I’m sure that Moses himself would have been comfortable with that description of a very strange confrontation coming out of nowhere.

Moses was a working man – and an immigrant – with a comfortable and ordered way of life. After he ran away from Egypt, he’d found himself a new life. Wife, kids, and work in the family business – his father-in-law’s business. He had married into his new career. Egypt with its disturbing memories had probably slipped into the back of his mind. In the life of a shepherd, one day would be much the same as any other. Like all other nomadic herdsmen then and now, Moses would mark the passage of time by subtle observation and calculation. Each day, each season measured out each day, until death or disaster intervened. And so Moses’ life had ticked on for thirteen years.

We don’t know much about his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, but the writers of the Book of Exodus treated his memory with respect. Rather surprising respect, given the usual attitude towards pagan priests in the Hebrew scriptures. For that matter, we don’t know how much Moses knew or remembered about his Hebrew ancestors or their religion. After all, he’d been brought up in the royal household of Egypt and may never have walked among the houses where the Hebrews lived.  In his new life as Jethro’s son-in-law, he may have given an occasional passing thought to the God of his own ancestors while he watched over the animals in his care, but he would have had the gods of Egypt in his mind as well. He could easily have ignored the burning bush. Just another bit of brushwood that had succumbed to the desert heat. But something nudged him into stopping and really looking. As the text puts it -; “he turned aside”. And for once – for a few seconds – he was in a space where God could break through into his consciousness, and set him on a whole new journey.

But, at the beginning, the confrontation was decidedly unsettling. Moses hid his face – like a child who thinks ‘if I hide myself, you can’t see me’. God then launched into a very grandiose account of Godself  and the extravagant project to overcome the greatest nation in that region. No surprise that Moses wasn’t convinced either that it was possible or that he should allow himself to take part. And so we come to that very testing question that Moses threw at the voice. Who are you? We’ve been trying to answer that question ever since.

In that short reading from Jonathan Kirsh that I shared with you, the suggestion was that in the ancient Hebrew world there was a tradition that the name was known by the elders and passed on to succeeding generations. If you knew the name it would prove you were indeed an emissary of God. But is that really what’s at stake here? What’s at stake for us, here and now? Does it matter so much what words we use to address the Creator, or is it more about coming to an understanding of what each of us is called to be and do in our lives.

When did God last speak to you out of a burning bush? A friend once threw that challenge at me – and it was a challenge. Especially when she added that it can happen, and, that what we think God is asking us to do, and what God is actually asking us to do may, not be the same thing at all.

For many years I told myself that I could never, ever stand in front of a group of people and reveal myself out loud. I enjoyed being a part of things but that was it. I could be a happy gofer. Well, here I am today and I think that’s because I stopped one day to watch the burning bush – and listen to the voice that said, “go out and do it. And when you do, you will have the words. I am your safe place to stand in the swamp.”

God doesn’t leave us in our safe, accustomed niches. God called the Israelites to be a travelling people. God calls us to be the same. We can’t stand still on our faith journey – we can’t just stop at the point when we left Sunday School or Bible Class.

When Moses stopped by the bush, he moved onto holy ground – the space where God can work. We don’t have reserved holy spaces in our Protestant churches. No consecrated spaces for the priest, no icon screens, no inner space as there was in the long-gone Temple at Jerusalem. I think we’re right not to have set paces for special people, but we do risk losing the sense of awe and wonder of standing where and when God is.

Earth’s crammed

with heaven,

and every common bush

afire

with God;

and only he who sees

takes off his shoes.

The rest

sit round it

and pluck blackberries.                       E B Browning

The way of God is never an easy ride. We get it wrong over and over again. Moses got it wrong often. If you read through the whole of the Moses story – including all the bits that never get anywhere near a Sunday School curriculum – because we don’t want to upset the children or ourselves – you’ll meet a very contradictory person. Gentle shepherd one day and violent warmonger the next; prepared to follow God one day, fiercely arguing with God the next. Hero one day, villain the next.

Moses was rather like Peter, faithful, blundering Peter, who was appalled at Jesus’ prediction of his, Peter’s, suffering. And rocked back on his heels by Jesus’ reaction to Peter’s own words: “Get behind me, Satan!” Peter was not quite yet in the space when he could stop, and see the burning bush, and hear God.

It’s the same for groups of people as well as for individuals. The ancient Hebrews were told to leave vengeance to God. Sometimes they did. And sometimes they decided that God intended them to annihilate other tribes. It’s the same today with powerful rulers, militant terrorists, with people who live out a mantra of “I’m right and everyone who doesn’t agree with me is wrong and/or evil.” It’s been the same with all religions down the ages until the present day. Not one of the major faith traditions has been able to turn all the swords into ploughshares and plant vineyards instead of arms factories.

All these ‘them’ and ‘us’ divisions introduce a dualism between good and evil, and shield us from recognising the dark corners in ourselves. Think of Peter again. All of us have a shadow side, and unless we acknowledge it, we won’t be able to move on. Part of redemption is recognising the darkness in ourselves and beginning the work of forgiving and transforming those aspects of ourselves.

The angel in the burning bush still calls us to do what seems impossible. We’re called to be able to say and mean to ourselves and to others: I will try to go on loving the life in you, or the divine in you, or the soul in you – whatever name we give it, even when I loathe what you (or I) do or stand for. I will try to see all lives as of equal value in the eyes of God. When Jesus recognised the shadow in himself that desired to walk away from conflict and probable death, he was able to turn his back on temptation and to ‘set his face towards Jerusalem’. He went on with the transforming work of bringing God’s realm to be in our hearts and lives.

And never mind defining that name “God”. In the words the Israeli poet Zelda:

Each person has a name

given him by God

and given him by his father and mother.

 

Each person has a name

given him by his height and his way of smiling

and given him by his garment.

 

Each person has a name

given him by the hills

and given him by his walls.

 

Each person has a name

given him by the stars

and given him by his neighbours.

 

Each person has a name

given him by his sins

and given him by his longing.

 

Each person has a name

given him given him by those who hate him

and given him by his love.

 

Each person has a name

given him by his festivals

and given him by his work.

 

Each person has a name

given him by the seasons of the year

and given him by his blindness.

 

Each person has a name

given him by the sea

and given him

by his death.

 

We are all made up of many identities – do we have a real name? I’ll finish with a Hasidic story told about the Hasidic master Zusya of Hanipol. Shortly before his death he said: “In the world to come, if they challenge me with the question: ‘Zusya, why were you not like Moses?’ then I will be able to answer them – how could I be like Moses when I am not Moses. But if they ask me ‘Zusya, Zusya, why were you not Zusya?’ what will I be able to answer them?’”

Rev Barbara Peddie